Extra Life—Tabletop Appreciation Weekend

Since announcing our plan to participate in Tabletop Appreciation Weekend our team has raised over $500! I just wanted to take this opportunity to update where we stand relative to our own goals and relative to other teams. We have raised $535 with 27 donations. And we are the 284th team out of over 2,200! The teams are largely video gamers. We would like to be the number 1 tabletop team participating this year. In order to do that we need your help.

Since inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised over $43 MILLION!

CMNH Statistics

I’d like to share some sobering statistics with you. In any given day, 200 children will visit a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital emergency room. My personal goal of $200 (our team’s goal is $1,350) is less than half the cost of the average pediatric ER visit cost. Also, in that same day, 32 children will receive cancer treatments and another 28 will be treated for heart problems. That’s 94,900 children per year! Possibly more than your town’s population.

But sometimes such staggering numbers are hard to comprehend. Let’s scale it back just a little. Today 4 children will be admitted to a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital after being diagnosed with a serious illness with an average hospital stay cost of $7,500. I’m fortunate enough to say that I have four healthy and beautiful children. I don’t have a sad story to relate to you. But I cannot imagine the stress I would be going through if one of those four that get admitted tomorrow happened to be mine. The last thing I’d want to stress over is cost. There is no value I could place on their lives.

But that’s often the way it goes. Your child is healthy, happy, and smiling one day and the next he may need the kind of care you’ve only read about in magazines or on a heart-wrenching Facebook page.

Tabletop Appreciation Weekend is August 25-26

This weekend I’ll be celebrating life and livelihood with my wife and children and family and friends and social media by playing board games and card games all day long. I do it for two reasons. The first being that I want to take a minute to slow down and enjoy things while I’m fortunate enough to have the chance. I love games but I love my family more.

But the second reason is less self-serving. I want to raise as much money as I can for this cause. I’m not a medical professional and I’m not independently wealthy so this is the best I can do. So, I implore you, spare a dollar for this if you’re able. If you’re not, spread the word. It costs nothing to do so except a bit of your time and there are others who are able to spare a dollar in your place.

Thank you!

I’ll leave you with a few other meaningful statistics regarding CMN Hospitals:

they treat 98% of all children needing heart or lung transplants

they treat 88% of all children with cancer

they treat 76% of all children with cystic fibrosis

they treat 90% of all children with sickle cell anemia

they treat 72% of all children with pediatric AIDS

they devote 60% of their services to children under age 6

they provide $2.5 billion in charity (uncompensated) care each year

To give you a concept of a billion I’d like you to consider the following. If you stood around waiting for a bus for a millionseconds you be cooling your heels for about 11 and a half days. But if you had to wait for a billion seconds you’d be waiting for over 31 years! CMNH spends $2.5 billion of uncompensated charity in a year.